SkullBolt

Annoying Story Repeater

Sunday

Eats, sleeps, roams the streets -- Only arrested once: At age 14 or so, I was cutting through a school yard on my bike in the evening. I had a bag of candy I had just bought at 7/11. The school had been vandalized repeatedly around that time. The police were being ...'thorough'...in their surveillance of 'suspicious' activities in the school yard. The cop comes zooming up in his cruiser - right up on the sidewalk behind me. Blah blah, he reads me my rights. He didn't put me in the car though. He told me to get on my bike and ride home - and that he was going to follow me. I lived at the other end of the school yard, across the street. We got to my house and my dad came out. He yelled at the cop. He called downtown and yelled at somebody at the police station. He told me everything was alright and that the whole thing was stupid.

Sunday

Saturday

My brother always carried a gun. He didn't always need it. He didn't really need it much at all. In truth, I can only remember a few stories he told me where he actually 'needed' it. He never shot anybody. But he would make it known he was carrying it when he was doing his job, when he went to tow some junk car out of a rough neighborhood, say, and somebody was sneaking up or lurking, watching him, waiting for him to let his guard down, maybe, ...so that he could rob him. He had a few stories like that. Once he started carrying it all the time, he just got used to the feeling of having it on him. He got used to the feeling of security.

One night we were riding around for hours in my car, just driving...doing what we did on such drives... At one point my brother noticed that the vehicle behind us was very close. It was a big truck. The headlights were really high, and the beams were blazing on the backs of our heads. My brother got furious. We were on some desolate country road, in Suffolk, Virginia, I think. The longer the guy stayed on right our ass, the more furious my brother got. He had his gun on him, and he took it out. "Stop the fuckin car!"

I was extremely nervous.

"Stop the fuckin car, Bobby! Stop the car!" My brother was screaming at me as I drove.

I didn't want to stop the car. I was afraid of what might happen. I looked in the rear-view mirror at the blazing, big headlights getting closer and closer. I listened to my brother's escalating anger and screaming, right in my ear. I drove like that for a while...with the headlights...the screaming. I didn't stop at first.

I was afraid my brother would shoot at this guy. I was afraid of the guy in the truck behind us...or guys. I had no idea who it was behind us. It could have been six dudes with shotguns. It could have been one scrawny teenager. Finally I stopped the car.

"Okay. Now what," I said. The guy in the truck behind us also stopped. We are deep in the country, nobody around, no light, nothing. Just that guy's headlights illuminating us. I have imagined all kinds of alternate endings to that night. I imagined that I got out of the car and I sprinted back at the driver side of the truck, and I was greeted by a shotgun barrel. I imagined my brother getting out of the car and emptying a whole clip into the dude's windshield. I imagined myself...screaming back at my brother -- to get the fuck out of my car -- so he could walk his ass home three hours (the least likely of these scenarios).

So we sat there. The guy in the truck behind us just sat there too. My brother showed his gun to those big blazing headlights. My brother's raging body language, the gun shining in the headlights...maybe was enough of a demonstration for the guy behind us that...at least one of the people in my car was willing, apparently willing, to 'take this to another level' ...and end up on a police report or something.

We continued to sit there. Gradually, my brother became more still and quiet. He muttered stuff, that's right, motherfucker, you better not get out... So we sat there and we sat there and we sat there. I didn't say a word. Finally, my brother said, "Alright. Let's get out of here."

I put it in drive and began to drive away. The truck stayed parked where it was.

1) After one hundred years in that relationship with that one and only person, I forgot how to deal with other people.

2) Last night I felt as though the most crucial writing task of my life was upon me, but I went to bed.

3) I am currently waiting out a rain shower, sitting in my car, waiting to go into a store. The other people who are pulling into the parking lot are showing admirable hustle, getting out of their car and running through the rain.

4) I hope that this friend of mine forgives me.

5) My boss is making me watch videos all weekend for some new product.

6) People should slow down in parking lots. I have seen two near misses just sitting here.

7) I have talked to two editors, and they both say, at the end of the day, in their spare time, they'd rather just look at the pictures, and not dense text, least of all: run-on sentences.

8) I have to go to my new favorite place tonight. They are starting to recognize me there.

Friday

Today I saw a guy riding a bike carrying a rake, and because my brain is really racing lately, I flooded this sight of this guy on a bike with a rake...I flooded it with all of this mental activity. My first unfortunate reaction was to make fun of him... like he was a superhero..."Look! It's Rake Man! And he's going to save the day, raking leaves at the house of some unfortunate elderly woman. I think my brain just felt the need to analyze and emote... something... anything... intensely. Plus, when I first caught a glimpse of him, it looked like he was riding the rake... like he was a witch... man witches ride on rakes instead of brooms.

Then I felt guilty... for making fun of him.

Then I felt sorry for him. He's just trying to get somewhere to earn some cash. People don't ride bikes to work in Florida unless they do not have a car. Everything is too spread out.

The guy waved to another guy who is on a bike across the street. For some reason, my brain made an association, and I looked to see if that other guy was also carrying some kind of tool. Like maybe these two guys were going to go meet on a job. But the other guy wasn't carrying anything.

Today should be a productive day at work, if I can focus all of this mental activity on something productive that is.

Monday

Sometimes I wonder if you did indeed become a ghost. When I describe you to people, and I describe your transition out of my life, I describe you as a ghost. You came home at midnight, every night, in those last two weeks. I didn’t hear the door open, you came in through a wall. You didn’t say a word to me or even look at me when you came home. You walked past me, two feet away, as I laid on the cot I had set up in the living room. You grabbed an insipid, craftless meal from the kitchen. You walked back to the bedroom, and you closed the door. Sometimes, when you came in, I did what I did as a child when I thought there was a ghost around. I laid still and squeezed my eyelids together as tightly as I could.

I believe that once I walked right through a real ghost. I told you the story, several times probably. Have you met that ghost in your ghostly interactions? Do you remember thay story? My coworkers from the restaurant and I ran around that 230 year old house all night, and we were all drunk. We were exploring and laughing and popping out and scaring each other. Nobody reported any ghost encounters at first, and people got tired and began to go home. In the end it was just a waitress named April and me. We were in the attic, and she was watching me walk around. Suddenly I froze. I felt a sensation like none I had ever felt before. It was hot and cold at the same time. Goosebumps popped up all over my skin. There was a weird, foreign energy that passed through me. I don’t think I ever told you what April and I did after that.

It often feels like a ghost might be watching. It’s never at a time that I would expect. It’s never at a time when I would actually need a ghost. Ghosts aren’t supposed to be ‘reliable’ I guess. They just are. Or they aren’t.

I have many theories about ghosts. Ghosts watch you when you are with your lovers. Ghosts can travel back through time and watch you with your past lovers. Ghosts can even see themselves during the time that they were with you, when they were still in a physical body.

Everybody has a ghost story. You had your ghostly photo with that strange blur of light. The light blur had a human form. I can’t remember now whether that ghost was somebody you knew, or if it was just a random ghost stranger . . . just moving through . . . a clumsy tourist, accidentally caught in somebody else’s photo.

Sunday

Today was not an unusual day for me, a day of awkward and odd interactions and miscommunications and miscues and and apologies and tiny glimpses of sublime something or whatever...and extended thinking about my patterns and other standard stuff for half-crazy me.

I texted my neighbor a couple hours ago, "that was a shot right?"

Outside, I heard a firecracker or a shot, but I was thinking it was a shot.

"What?" he responded, an hour later.

"Earlier," I said.

"Nah," he said.

We do hear shots sometimes, we agree...some yahoo with a shotgun across the lake, the lake through the woods behind us. This is not a high crime area at all, and our complex management has even hired a security guard who I am afraid of who drives slowly in an SUV with more colored lights than Christmas. It made me think of other scary sounds from outside that I have heard while inside, lately, twice in the last couple of months, my coworkers and I have heard horrifying slams on breaks, screeches and subsequent crunches on the street outside. One time, it was a lady from another department of our company who pulled out of the parking lot in front of some BMW and got hit. She was okay. Everybody was okay.

Back to today and away from those extended thoughts and memories, today I was running around with a friend who I always get into weird goofy non-dangerous situations with. Today he wanted to take me to some place he thought was a park, but it was actually a reservation-required convention/retreat/compound sort of thing...but he was determined to enjoy this piece of America, so we got out of the car and started walking around.

"There is a sequestered retreat going on here today," said a lady with a tense face who hustled up to us as soon she spotted us. We said okay okay okay and started to leave...and I was getting bitten up by bugs anyway...but my friend had a business call he said he had to make right then and there and he didn't give a shit if they came and hassled us some more so I went and sat in the car. A mosquito got in the car when I got in, and I was trying to quick, open the door and shoo him out, and shut the door before allowing more mosquitoes in, but I was having no success, and the mosquito was the quickest one I've ever encountered, and I could neither swat him nor shoo him out, but I continued my efforts until my friend came and drove us out of there. The only way to get rid of mosquitoes in a situation like that is to start driving and put the windows down and let em get sucked out by the draft.

We made jokes about how the place was most definitely a cult compound as we drove off premises past a sand volleyball court and tennis court. We made about six wrong turns or missed turns on the way to and from the place because I was the one navigating.

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Today I texted a bit with a very stressed out person, an oncology nurse who I've been texting with lately. She was about to go into work another hellish night with people who are in the most terrifying part of their lives. She had only gotten four hours sleep between her last shift and this shift she was about to start.

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Today I looked up at an airplane and mumbled to myself, "Look at that airplane celebrating the sky." While I was looking up, I saw the top of this tall pine tree, and the needles were really shining in the sun. I was smoking a cigarette, and I got light headed, so I went and sat down. There were filter tips on the ground from those little cigars they make blunts out of, and my friend said, Yeah, he sits out here and smokes blunts all the time, and various women come and go, visiting him.

Around that time I drove home because I was feeling sick. I started to feel better after a few sips of an energy drink so I stopped and got my head mildly buzzed at Hair Cuttery. I probably left too big of a tip because of the lady who cut my hair and so on, and I felt stupid.

I got home to a lonely cat and a busted dvd player --no TV-- a blackout which I have half-enjoyed for the last week or so. I have an unfinished letter to my sister I must finish and mail...or just mail...because the letters are never finished. I read the ten year old blog archives of a dude who is one of my great great heroes and friends online...from all the way back at the beginning of my blogging days to the present day.

Friday

First: Today at work, during our Friday lunch party, somebody logged on netflix and started playing Cheers episodes on The Big Monitor. It was cool, except that it threw me. Cheers has been my salvation from this job. Ever since I first started this hard ass job, when things didn't look so good, I could always come home to Cheers. Or, I could wake up in the morning with Cheers. Cheers is one of the funniest shows ever made! I have recently completed my viewing of every single one of them on netflix. In a way, I don't like that they watched my favorite show - at work -- the show I watch to take my mind off of work. Another great show was Night Court, so I found a clip with that dude from that show.

Second: I got a wrong number text. It was a south New Jersey guy, trying to reach some girl. The following is the transcript, starting with his first message. I didn't know if I knew anybody in the 609 area code, like if maybe this was somebody I knew, but forgot I knew...but it turned out to be somebody I didn't know:

HIM: Morning Sexy!

ME: Good morning! Right number? Who you trying to reach? Thanks for calling me sexy though...

HIM: Lol. Its my pleasure.. Im Derek, is this Dana?

ME: Nah, ha, sorry

HIM: Oh my apologies.. My mistake! Whats ur name?

HIM AGAIN: Hey everything happens for a reason..Are u a female?

ME: I'm a dude, dude. So tell me about this Dana. Ha. Just kidding. I am a dude though.

Wednesday

An unfortunate misunderstanding during an already tense time, a misunderstanding that occurs right at the worst possible moment in tense times -- this kind of misunderstanding can...really suck. It seems like the resulting disaster is a direct result of that one dumb thing that happened. Somebody's gun accidentally goes off on one side of a border between two rival countries ...stuff like that. I just now googled: "most tragic misunderstandings in history" ...I didn't find shit exactly but I'm sure there are numerous examples of this ...that have occurred on a large scale. It happens all the time on interpersonal levels (duh, why am I writing this). We want to sort situations out, and we look for a single cause, but things were already tense.

Good morning. I woke up feeling like you can only believe about a quarter of what people say to you. Maybe an eighth. I saw a Ted Talk about how lying is so engrained in our communications, that it's not about determining whether someone is lying, it's how the lie fits into your strategy for deciphering information you receive. We learn to lie as infants, the Ted Talk said (I'll try to research and find the link). Obviously we lie. We lie in business and we lie in interpersonal business. Sometimes, though, the meanings that we invent, when we see the meaning bent or ignored, it 'seems' like a lie. It's not really a lie though. blah blah blah

Saturday

This is what you see from my balcony. I checked before I shot this, because it would be creepy to look over and see me with my cam pointed at you...I feel a little weird posting this anyway ...even though I made sure nobody was there at first. This shoot had to be done in order to illustrate the points I intend to make in my blog post. I don't know what those points will be, but I'm overcome lately with the impulse to write blog post after blog post and show up on stranger's blogs and comment there too.

No, I think the point I started with was going to be something about my neighbors and my community. Looking at this video, I realize our balconies could remind a person of cell blocks in a prison...like if you'd ever been in prison - or seen one on TV (I fall into the latter category, I promise).

I heard the property manager showing the unit on the first floor to interested renters. This place has quite a turnover.

I've only made neighborly introductions via the the space between balconies on two occasions: One guy, George, was an EMT. He was a divorced dad who ended up renting here after the divorce went down. He apologized in advance for the noise his kids would be making on the balcony, when he had his custody on weekends. I assured him it would be fine, and I told him I was glad to meet him.

The other guy seemed a little weirded out by me saying hello to him from my balcony as he stood on his balcony. I was sitting on my balcony with my other neighbor. It was really late, and she was being goofy and loud. I'm sure the guy across could hear us and see us. She burst out laughing at some point, I don't remember why...So I said hi to the guy across the way...hoping that he wouldn't think we were over here laughing at him for some reason... I don't know why I cared or thought he would think this ...or why I thought my saying hi would alleviate the imagined situation. He just said...um...hi...or whatever.

Why am I writing all this? I don't know. But I do know that the current tenant of the third floor unit sends her dog out to the balcony to pee and sometimes poop! It is horrifying. The pee runs off the balcony and drops three floors and hits the ground there. Sometimes I hear it when it happens...like if I'm sitting inside with the door open...the sound of some kind of liquid running off and hitting the ground below... I try not to even look over there ever. Today, when I glanced over there, though, I noticed that her balcony was really clear of dog poop. It was nice. I wonder if she's moving or something...cleaning up the unit so she can get her deposit back. I'll conclude this blog post here. There is a lot more I could say though.

The biting worry over work is very palpable on this Saturday morning. I had planned to wake up and get my brains going and do lots of work. I might just worry about work instead. This will free up time over the weekend for blogging and roaming. There is not enough room in my schedule to worry about work AND make a plan for the weekend. So there will be just work worry and spontaneous actions, whatever those might be. I could drive up the street this afternoon and get a little loaded and blab at whoever. I'll text everyone I can think of and see if someone in town will join me...somewhere. As the weekend progresses, the worry over work will gradually subside...until about 4pm Sunday. Then it will begin to peak again. Monday morning I will stress hard. I really am not that much of a worker. I obsess about work a lot, but I don't do all that much work.

Friday

Today I would have had to say a sad goodbye (I swear: my life is not complete sadness lately, ha!) But yes, I would have had to say goodbye to someone I have mixed (and intense) feelings about. So what did I do? I avoided it. I went home sick. This person became an angry second mom to me, kind of. I learned soooo much from the person, more than I could ever describe. The learnin came with a price though...or maybe the price was actually a different type of learnin...toughness training. Tough love or something. Deep down, I'm sure the person thinks I'm an idiot...and the person is right. I think the person might think I'm improving though...I hope they think that. I didn't always understand the harsh. I guess it serves a purpose. To a point. I've gotten a lot tougher and a lot thicker skin dealing with this person, I think. I have learned more from this person than I ever would have in stupid college courses, that's for goddam sure. The person had many many moments where it seemed like they cared a great deal about my wellbeing. The person has a free attitude with know-how...not at all insecure about telling what they know, because what they know is constantly growing. It's not the body of knowledge you'd have to gain to keep toe to toe with this person, it is the pace of learning. Anyway, I left when the person wasn't around...so I didn't say or do something embarrassing (except that I did, sort of, anyway, to other people, when announcing that I was leaving)...but/plus...I'm feeling a little 'sick' or something. Again, it's not all sadness with me lately, just little fires here and there in the big big field, smoldering stuff. There's a lot that's terrific too! Really, there is no limit to the possibilities. If I had to calculate the possibilities or say it was a roll of the dice, it would be a roll of this many dice: